His Fathers Eyes
by Oh Brian
Summary: Sort semiangst thing. Simba's feelings about his exile from the Pride Lands. Set sometime during TLK.


erm. Yeah. Look, I even fitted it into the plot of the movie. That's all. o_o;  
  
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His eyes. That's what everyone noticed first. The eyes. Wide, red eyes, that darted evey which way, always entertained by something, always trying to find something new. They said he never grew up, that one. He always had that childish spirit draped over him like a worn, comfortable coat that fit him just right. His eyes always had a bit of a sparkle in them..even if his face showed otherwise, his eyes always gave away just a hint of the lopsided, tooth grin he usually wore plastered across his face.  
  
They were his fathers eyes, everyone had always said. His fathers. Thats right, his father, whose footsteps Simba had always wanted to follow in every way, who Simba never felt he lived up to, whose words he remembered every night as he nuzzled up against the soft, damp blades of grass late at night as his mind was stewing, not sleeping, that's who they always said he resembled. But only in the eyes.   
  
He wasn't like Mufasa. A clumsy-looking golden form flung back from a soft, flowing brown mane that framed his smirking face..that's how Simba always saw himself. Just..a regular lion, just like any other. He often told himself that that was who he was. A regular lion. Let Scar be the Lion King. _Scar was very royal, wasn't he?_, Simba often asked himself. Convincing himself. _Yeah. Yeah, that's right._ Scar was fit to be a king. He knew what he was doing, didn't he? He'd let Scar be king. If only Simba could stay at peace with that.  
  
He never showed it to Timon and Pumbaa..what would they think?!..but he missed the Pride Lands. His heart, while the rest of him had grown accustomed to his new surroundings, still longed for the open plains of the savannah, for the towering stones that made up the majestic pride rock..for his mother. For Nala. He tried to keep his mind off of them, off of all the lions left in his past..because whenever he thought of them..his mind turned to Mufasa.  
  
Mufasa. The greatest lion ever..at least, to Simba he was. He always was. Mufasa was everything a Lion King should be. Poised, mature, responsible..not clumsy, absentminded, irresponsible and goofy, as Simba was. The clumsy, absentminded Simba. The foolish lion responsible for the death of the true Lion King. Hah. He was responsible for something.  
_  
But.._, he asked himself, _If you can't change the past..then..it's not my fault. Nothing is._ Simba always tried to leave the past behind, he really did. Hakuna Matata. That's what he'd learned out here. Hakuna Matata. As much as it made sense...because it DID...it really did...he always longed for his past. But it was gone - _that's what "in the past" means, you fool_, Simba chided himself. If he were in the past, though, his father would still be alive. He wouldn't have died. Simba would still have a mentor, and would become a LIon King as his father taught.  
  
But that wasn't happening. He was an exiled lion, banished for an unintentional crime. A murder. A murder. What had Scar said? "If it weren't for you, he'd still be alive." Dammit, why couldn't he have been more like Mufasa?! Mufasa would have known how to handle all of this. Mufasa would have known what to do, and what to say and how to act..but Mufasa wouldn't have killed his father, now would he? No.   
  
Tears sprung to his eyes and, after teetering delicately upon the edges of his eye sockets, rolled silently down his cheeks, dampening the fur. He hadn't cried for so long. He was letting his past go, he was releasing it all in the never-ending river of tears that flew relentlessly from his eyes. His fathers eyes. Let it all go, Simba, he told himself. Let your past go.. He was getting what he wanted, wasn't he? He was crying, letting it out, but somehow..he still needed what he was trying to cast aside. Because what he was trying to cast aside was part of him. Part of what made him who he was.   
  
He wanted to stop crying now. He did. But the tears wouldn't stop coming, they just flowed..they came and they wouldn't stop and, god dammit, where were these all coming from, he wasn't this sad, he wasn't supposed to cry, but the tears fell and they splattered against the grass beneath him and they dribbled slowly down the blades of grass like morning dew, but this was worse than dew, because the dew was comforting, and the tears were..  
  
"GRAWRGH!!!", The roar of a lioness snapped Simba back to his senses. A lionesses roar? He hadn't heard that since..since back then. A sound from his past halted the tears and brought Simba to his feet, and on instinct, he bounded away into the forest, bellowing his poweful roar throughout the forest, sending birds flying from their nests, sending bugs into an uproar buzzing from their hives, and..  
  
He tackled the Lioness, pushing her down onto the gritting forest floor. The two of them leapt at each other continuously, tearing at one anothers exposed flanks, at necks, at hind legs..anywhere that they could. The savage fight progressed into something resembling a wrestling match. The beige-furred lioness, his foe, his enemy, kicked him with her hind legs, leapt into the air, rolled him and struck him down with her front paws, pinning Simba to the forest floor with an audible thump, his mane tangled in tree roots and dead leaves.   
  
A move he recognized. From so long ago.  
  
From his past.  
  
His fathers eyes widened. "Nala?"  
--- end.  



End file.
